Medical care in America

On behalf of The Lawrence Firm, PSC posted in Medication Errors on Monday, March 5, 2012.

Dr. Otis Webb Brawley has written a book called, "How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America." Despite what politicians may claim Dr. Brawley blames much of physician malpractice and medical malpractice going on in the United States on the physician.

Dr. Brawley believes that many doctors are science adverse and who will reject objective evidence. Also, treatment by physicians is often worse than the disease. For example, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants resulted in a woman's hospitalization for more than 1-year, yet the combination treatment has never been shown to be effective for the breast cancer it was claimed to treat.

Worst are the number of medications that patients are now prescribed that often do more to produced ill-health than good health. Death resulting from prescribed drugs is currently higher than deaths from traffic accidents on our roads.

Often medication errors can lead to permanent injuries or deaths, and this is particularly true when fatal combinations of medications are taken together. A simple miscommunication between doctor and staff can lead to the wrong medication or wrong dosage being prescribed. Though studies concerning adverse drug reactions were made in 2003, an analysis in 2010 found little no improvements have been made.

Sadly, many medical decisions are made based upon finances rather than what is best for the patient. This is true in Ohio, Kentucky and the rest of the nation. Some treatments are ordered because the hospital specializes in that area. That's not to say such treatments were medically necessary.

Brawley's conclusions may be unduly pessimistic, but this does not mean that mistakes by doctors should go unnoticed. When such physicians put finances above the needs of patients, such patients will retain attorneys to be compensated for injuries received.

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